I finished another weaving project. As is typical, I learned a thing or two. First of all, calculate and then recalculate. On this one, I somehow managed to calculate my warp too short to accommodate the amount of weft I had available. I have about half the weft left over and I have a rather short scarf. It’s disappointing. Particularly disappointing because I had another ball of warp yarn available! So, instead of using up two stash yarns, I used half of two stash yarns. Ugh.

The scarf itself is awfully pretty. No regrets there!

I don’t have anything on the loom right now. I don’t even have anything on the warping board right now. I need to either pick out a pattern to work on, or choose another interesting yarn to use with a regular weave, or wait for new warp cotton yarn I have arriving next week. Not sure which I’ll end up choosing.

With this finished project, I am now at 73% of my goal of 40 projects this year. I currently have two pairs of socks, a stocking, and a part of a stole on the needles. I also have it in my head to make a few fun items that should knit up pretty fast. I am currently feeling good about that goal.

About the goal of under 100 stashed yarns? Not as good. I have brought in a few weaving cotton yarns that I need to get listed in stash. I’ve made great progress, and I really don’t think I have purchased yarns that I haven’t used immediately this year, and the weaving tends to eat stash quickly. But, often I’ll use a yarn that I can’t completely remove from stash since I didn’t use it ALL. Plus, there’s the influx when I do get around to spinning.

I do need to do another serious stash shake out, it’s always good to remove and rearrange to make sure I am remembering the things I have. I did do a craft room clean up recently so I’d have more room to do that shake out. But haven’t done the shake out yet. Perhaps today, if it rains.

In any case, this is what my crafting looks like today. 🙂

A short list of things that make me feel dumb. In no particular order.

1. Gauge. I finished the sock I had been working on all weekend. I put it on, it was WAY too large. Decided that was fine, it would fit Mr. Ink. I asked him to try it on. I started the second sock. It is way smaller, a much more appropriate size for the needles I am using. It’ll fit me. Gauge makes me feel dumb. Or maybe, it’s tension that makes me feel dumb.
2. Allergies. Spoiler alert-it was just allergies. I started to feel better by Saturday evening after spending all day indoors. Hung out with friends outside Saturday evening, sneezed all morning. I refuse to let allergies stop my life right now, so I am going to have to just accept that sneezy, snotty, itchy, and fog brained are part of my life right now.
3. Work. There’s just so much going on and I am just desperately trying to remember eveything that needs to be done that I don’t have much space for anything else. I spent all week avoiding the issues with my loom because I didn’t have the brain power to figure it out because work was too busy.
4. Learning something new. This morning I went downstairs to my loom trying to work out what the heck was wrong with it. Prior to doing so, I looked up types of looms trying to figure out what I have so I could figure out the issue at hand. Then I went downstairs, got under my loom, and pressed on the working treadles to teach myself how the darn thing worked in the first place. I still couldn’t figure out the bum treadle, so I pressed and lifted it while looking at the side of the loom. Turns out, the rope that needs to connect to the treadle to make the shafts move had come unhooked. Easy fix. I felt pretty dumb not having been able to work that out right from the start!

On the bright side, this means I finally got the opportunity to tie up the loom the way I wanted to. It’s still just a simple weave, but I’ve got each harness hooked up to the outside treadles, in hopes I’ll get used to using both feet. I had just been using my right foot for the last project.

Details: The warp is cotton, it’s Rowan Cotton Glace I had in stash. Sadly, I couldn’t remove this yarn from stash since I still have one more ball left. But, I am glad that I was able to get some stash moved out of my cabinet even so. The weft is a chain ply handspun I spun quite a few years ago. I am loving how it is weaving up so far.

Things I am learning with this project. First of all, I need to be more careful about the selvage warp threads, I’ve got two always together on the edges now. This isn’t how things are supposed to be! But it’s how they are going to be as I am not going back. So, when figuring out where to begin, I need to take those warp threads into account.

Another thing, I need to not be afraid to add more waste weft to the start of the project, and I need to be ok with pulling those edges a little tighter when adding the waste weft. At the moment, I am getting some pretty ugly inches at the beginning before I get into a decent groove. Allowing myself more waste space would definitely help this.

Warp tension is another thing I need improvement on. Just because I feel like all the warp threads are tight doesn’t mean I don’t have to go back and check one more time. I can see where I didn’t, and it is a little too obvious for my own comfort level.

I am very happy to have had a little bit of time to weave today. We have dog park and a bike ride planned for later today so I’ll lose a lot of crafting time, but gain time with other hobbies. Stay tuned, I’ll go into more detail about the sock that has gauge issues in a different post.

Weaving is absolutely the best stash buster ever. I can start warping a loom on Friday evening and have a finished scarf on Sunday. It’s JUST that quick. Which is amazing to me.

The unseasonably warm temps around here didn’t hurt either, I washed the scarf, and set it out in the sun while I went for a motorbike ride. Upon my return, it was dry.

I actually tied on the warp for my next scarf to this warp so that I didn’t have to worry about rewarping the loom.

This is the remainder of my yarn from my Smaug batt and braid. It’ll be a much thinner scarf, or, something else entirely, but I really wanted to see what this looked like with a dark weft.

At this point I am just experimenting madly with the look. Throw a warp on there and go to town. It feels great, very freeing. One of these days I really will start looking up patterns and using them. But for now, I am enjoying the freedom of creativity.

I love a full but relaxing weekend so much! And that’s exactly what I got this weekend.

I finished a few things! First up, I finished my spinning project. I’d had leftover 3 feet of sheep fiber from my collapse weave scarf. I was sick of blocks of colors, so I decided to blend the colors together as I was spinning. This gave it an interesting overall look, with colors flowing into the next.

I ended up with 305 yards of worsted weight yarn, chain plied.

This was fun to chain ply as I’d already forgotten what colors were under the top colors.

As soon as the spinning project was done and washed, I went into the loom room and decided to stay there until my latest weaving project was done. Got that off the loom, washed, and out to dry.

The handspun warp on this one is Marja’s handspun, and the weft is mine, from a fleece I processed awhile back. I really like how it turned out, the random and long colors of the warp really feature all the color gifts handspun has to offer!

As soon as that was done, Mr. Ink and I took my new to me bike out for a dirt ride. You see, I’ve been borrowing this bike for awhile. It’s a MUCH better mountain bike than the one I was riding. But, since it was a friends bike, I didn’t get it all dialed in for my body. It is now my bike, as she has given up riding dirt. So, Mr. Ink and I worked on the suspension, adjusted the brakes, moved the handlebars, the grips, the shifting, etc. This meant that we did a lot of starting and stopping, as we would stop, I’d tell him what I wanted to do next, and he’d pull out his tools and make it happen.

The one thing in particular left to do is to get some better tires. But, it’s a fun bike to ride! 29 inch wheels, and a lot lighter than what I had before. (What I had before will be set up for winter riding, then go to Miss Bug in the spring, since she’s horrifyingly close to being tall enough to ride it.)

I love these three pictures in one post, because it really sums up who I am. (I suppose knitting and motorbikes need to be pictured as well.) It’s nice to have a weekend where I get to enjoy almost everything I love the most.

I mentioned to Mr. Ink early on that I intended for Tuesday evening to be a relaxing evening full of tidying the house (Yes, that’s relaxing) and crafting for me. He decided that he would like to make a nice dinner and kill weeds in the yard.

So, after quite a bit of tidying, most of it happening before Mr. Ink even came home, I got to work on a warp I am trying for my next weaving project. The warp is handspun from Miss Marja, and it’s quite lovely. Then I pulled out some of my own handspun 2 ply from a fleece I processed to use as a weft.

Well, the warping didn’t go so well. I need to remember to check before I start winding everything on to make sure I’ve got my warp correct. It wasn’t. It wasn’t correct repeatedly. I thought I’d gotten it, but I hadn’t.

Then, I got the thing wound on, only to realize I’d lost a warp thread (it decided it wasn’t strong enough for the weaving journey) and so I had to untie and move everything over yet again. I think at that point I wanted to give up. But, I also wanted to weave. So I took a break for Mr. Ink’s dinner.

One way I know the season is changing is that Mr. Ink starts making my favorite food. Homemade French Onion Soup. It’s really truly wonderful and if we could make it once a week, we probably would.

He’s such a good cook, and he also cooks so willingly. Sometimes I’ll allude to the fact that I should probably cook more often, and his response is “I don’t want you to HAVE to cook. You already do so much around here, you should not have to cook too.”

Though, once he starts adding herbs to the pot of soup, I generally jump in and add some more. 🙂

Thus fortified, I was able to finish warping the loom, and even got a tiny bit of weaving done. Here’s a preview of what this project will look like.

It’s so pretty, and I love the warm and cool colors playing together in the warp. So nice!

Well, it may have caused me all sorts of issues, but the scarf turned out great!

I plunged it into it’s hot water bath, and it absolutely did what I wanted it to, it pulled in due to the energized singles.

I did have to redo all the fringe after the hot water bath. Once all the energy showed up in the singles, it took all the twist back out of my fringe. That was interesting!

This was a great project, it kept me interested and I am glad I managed to make it happen. However, I sincerely doubt I’ll do another one. It was just…..tough. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I get better at weaving, but as of right now, I don’t see me trying this again.

But it was fun! And I am pleased with the result!

Last evening I sat at my loom until my project was done. I couldn’t resist this charming picture of yarn on the loom.

Just layer upon layer of gorgeous color!

I have learned a lot from this project thus far. In addition to the lessons I learned about sizing the warp with gelatin sizing, I also learned that if spacers are being used, you really must have all the spacers for the project. I kept reusing the original spacer, and this made the weft threads move when I was winding the loom. I had 3 warp threads break, but honestly that didn’t seem too bad considering that I was using very thin singles. And I managed those.

But, overall, my frustration toward the end of this project was high. Mr. Ink came into my loom room at one point, and I said “You know what my problem is? My problem is that I am not willing to put in the time doing the simple projects and learning all I can about them before I attempt the complicated projects.”

Mr Ink said “You know what? I bet no matter your frustration, people will love the final piece. And, I bet it will also turn out as you wish it to.”

Then he left to play pool with his friend, and I sat in my loom room weaving and cursing.

I finished. And pulled it off the loom.

Here’s what came off the loom before it’s bath. The weft threads were not sized, so those pull in, but the warp threads still have their sizing, so they are stiff and straw like.

I did put it in the bath, and here’s a spoiler alert. It looks great! I now need some decent weather so I can get photographs. But, autumn is coming in like a lion, with massive storms and high winds. And it’s dark. It’s been dark. No photographs yet!

I learned a few lessons with my gelatin sizing project.

#1. Be sure to get as much excess sizing off the warp as possible, as excess sizing makes a nasty sticky mess, and is hard on the singles.

#2. Save a portion of the sizing for later use, only toss after weaving is complete.

This should help you deduce what happened, but I’ll tell you anyhow. I had a nasty sticky section, and when I tried to pull it apart, I ended up breaking two of the warp threads. So, I quickly put two more on my warping board, but then didn’t have any gelatin sizing left since Miss Bug had used it all to play with. I quickly looked up other options, and noticed that some people use cheap hairspray. So, I decided that was a quick and easy option worth a try.

I spent part of last evening and part of today on warping the loom. I recently made some changes in my loom room, one of the changes being removing an area rug that kept getting in my way. I now have only the hardwood floor in there, and since all the furniture is on floor protectors, it’s easy to move it around. This means I can get to the back of my loom as simply as I can get to the front of it.

I just move the table around, and slip my chair back there and I am all set. I love that!

I just finished tying one end of the warp to the loom. I now need to do the same with the front, but I figured I’d take a quick break. It’s looking pretty good at the moment!

I also prepared some of the weft singles, getting them onto bobbins and ready to go. Once the warping is complete, it should all go quite quickly!

Another update from the weekend, Mr. Ink decided to start customizing my motorbike. He got a seat cover for it, and then created a custom triumph logo piece for it. I think it looks great!

We took a ride after he put it on the bike, and he’s decided it makes the bike go faster. 🙂 Also, he’d like me to note that this is only the beginning of the customizing of this bike. So you’ll probably see more. But, since I tend to love riding his bike more than my own, I told him he wasn’t allowed to customize this one any more until he makes the clutch easier to pull on his bike. Funny how quick that worked, he’s out in his garage right now with his bike torn apart. I hope it works!

A wonderful and relaxing weekend for us all, and so entirely needed. We got tons of housework done, additional organizing and finding spots for things that need spots done, a nice dirt ride on our bicycles, it really couldn’t have been more pleasant. I could use another day or two of this!

I bet you feel exactly the same.

It’s a quiet weekend with no obligations!  I couldn’t be happier about that. I took this as an opportunity to do the next step in my collapse weave scarf.

The morning dawned sunny and cool. I had mixed up some gelatin last evening to use as sizing on my warp, and just let it set overnight.

Then, I used two chairs and some rods to stretch out my warp.

I think that’s just as pretty as can be! Then Miss Bug and I set to work squishing the gelatin into the warp, attempting to coat each strand. It was very sloppy, and Miss Bug loved it, but worried there wouldn’t be enough gelatin to play in after we were done.

There was, you can see her playing in the grass. I hope this works!

Have a great weekend everyone, I plan to spend mine cleaning and relaxing!

I’ve long wanted to create a collapse weave scarf out of handspun. I even spun for it awhile back, but didn’t get much further than that.

With my latest wall hanging off the loom, and no specific project on my wheel, I decided it’s time to work on that collapse weave. I took all the singles I’d spun and ran them through the wheel again to add more twist.

Then, I wound the yarn on my warping board.

I ended up running out of singles of the colors I had started with, and then decided just to add more color. There’s no real reason not to! I am using a frabjous fibers 3 feet of sheep kit after all, I’ve got more than enough color to work with!

This morning I took the singles I spun for the weft, which are slightly thicker than those for the warp, and began adding more twist to them. I am almost done, and positive I’ll finish tonight after work.

This weekend I’ll have to find a way to make some sizing and put that on the warp yarn. I figured I’d wait unto the weekend so that I can do this outdoors, saving a mess inside.

Stay tuned, I am pretty excited about this project and plan to update you regularly!

Mr. Ink and I put up all our art, and once it was up I mentioned that I might like to eventually add another wall hanging or two. Oddly enough, he was eager that I should make them, and already decided on space for them on the wall.

That got me thinking about my next weaving project. I finally settled on a handspun I’d created awhile back, out of border leicester. I cram pot dyed the locks, and then spun from the locks. I ended up with a very fuzzy 2 ply yarn.

I decided that it would make a fun warp for an interesting project. You see, I’d been saving these sari silk ribbons for awhile, and I thought they’d make a cool weft. So, I got to work warping my loom in order to have a sari silk ribbon wall hanging.

After a few false starts, after all, it’s been awhile, I ended up with a warped loom and some really high hopes.

In gardening news, we received, as a house warming gift, and absolutely fantastic little planter. I quickly added some alyssum flowers to the pot and it’s been growing beautifully ever since. This is from the first week, I’ll get a new picture soon for comparison sake. It’s really filling out nicely.

Miss Bug is off to another week of camp and we are hard at work on a garage sale in order to clear out the old house. Another weekend quickly gone, another week fast approaching. But, I don’t work the full week, so it should be a quick one!